


Dinner and a Monster Fight

by Aerle



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 16:17:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17410142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerle/pseuds/Aerle
Summary: This is my first Merlin fic, and it's all Vergina-spva's fault.Based on the prompt, "Percival and Gwaine trying to have a romantic dinner", by the aformentioned Vergina-spva.





	Dinner and a Monster Fight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vergina-SPVA (VerginaSPVA)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerginaSPVA/gifts).



> This is my first Merlin fic, and it's all Vergina-spva's fault.
> 
> Based on the prompt, "Percival and Gwaine trying to have a romantic dinner", by the aformentioned Vergina-spva.

Things had been… good, lately. Sure, there were some attacks, raids and monster sightings here and there, but Arthur’s knights were an elite team that worked well together and all loved to fight.

But while Percival and Gwaine were part of said elite team and thus worked together on a daily basis, fighting side by side – with the other knights there, and Merlin – was not the same as spending time together, something Percival believed should change. So, he tried to organise a romantic dinner.

Today, it had been relatively quiet. The knights had spent most of the day training, so they were worn, but not too worn that they couldn’t stay awake over dinner. Percival had bribed the cook to make them something nice, and now everything was perfect. The candles were lit, the food was hot, the wine was plenty, and certain items that may or may not be necessary after dinner were procured. There was only one thing missing.

The door was thrown open, right on time, as Percival was pouring wine into a goblet, and he looked up to see Gwaine. There was a gleam in his eyes, and Percival raised an eyebrow, because that was the gleam that spelled trouble.

“Bandits,” was all Gwaine said, his grin so big it had to hurt.

Percival’s eyebrow, if possible, rose even higher. “Bandits?”

“Bandits,” Gwain confirmed and took the goblet out of Percival’s hand. “Thanks,” he said, as he emptied it in one go and threw it aside. “You coming?” he called over his shoulder.

Percival sighed and grabbed his sword. Gwaine hadn’t even noticed the set table.

* * *

A new day, a new chance, he thought. The cook was annoyed that he had wasted perfectly good food, but fortunately, Gwen, angel that she was, came to his aid and coaxed the cook into helping him again. She had been good friends with him in her days as a maidservant. She also understood the importance of having some time alone with a special someone.

Gwen even helped him set the table, even when he told her not to, but she shooed him away, telling him nonsense, she had done it a thousand times back in the day, so Percival gave up. There was no telling Gwen what to do.

“Oh, I almost forgot the wine,” Percival said.

“You can’t forget the wine,” Gwen replied smiling as she smelled one of the flowers she was arranging, “not with Gwaine.”

“Unless there’s beer,” he joked, and they both had to laugh, until Gwen suddenly went quiet.

“Hush, do you hear that?” There were footsteps heading their way.

“Quick!” Gwen ushered him towards the door. “Get the wine. I’ll hold Gwaine here.”

Percival opened the door, almost running straight into Arthur.

“Whoa there,” the king said. “What’s the hurry? Bandits again?” he joked.

Percival smiled sheepishly and opened his mouth to reply, when Arthur suddenly pushed him aside.

“What’s all this, then? Gwen!” he exclaimed. “I can’t believe you remembered!” He walked into the room, his arms spread out, while Gwen looked wide-eyed at Percival.

“Of course I did?” she stammered.

“The anniversary of my slaying of my first boar.” Arthur put his hands on his hips and looked around seemingly quite pleased. “I expected nothing less of my wonderful wife.” He gave her a kiss and pulled her against him. “The only thing that would make it better is if there was wine. Merlin should fetch something. Percival, have you seen Merlin?”

In fact, Percival had seen Merlin. He had seen him sneaking around as Merlin tended to do from time to time, a habit Arthur didn’t care for.

“Merlin is eh…” Percival started.

Arthur narrowed his eyes. “If you say he’s at the tavern, heads will roll.”

Just then, Gwaine stuck his head around the corner of the door. “Who’s head is gonna roll? And, more importantly, who’s at the tavern?”

“Merlin,” Arthur said through gritted teeth.

“Don’t worry, boss, I’ll go fetch him.” Gwaine winked and disappeared.

Percival sighed again and decided to follow him. Dragging Gwaine’s drunken ass from the tavern was not exactly how he had hoped the night would go.

* * *

“Let me guess, more bandits?” Percival didn’t even make the effort to turn around and instead just blew out the candles.

“Psh, nah,” Gwaine replied. “Just your run of the mill demonic creature, summoned by Morgana from the depths of hell. No biggie.”

Percival gave him a deadpanned  look as he followed Gwaine to the armoury. “There is no need for sarcasm.”

“What’s with you lately?” Gwaine asked. “You’ve been mopey for days now.”

Percival just grumbled something.

“You know what we should do?” Gwaine slapped him on the shoulder. “Have a quiet night together, just the two of us.”

Something snapped in Percival’s head, and it took Elyan, Arthur, and Leon’s strength to stop him from murdering Gwaine, who just looked plain confused.

“What did I say?”

“I don’t know what you said,” Arthur said, “but I do know you said it wrong.” He patted Percival on the back. “Let’s go fight this demon dog.”

“Technically, I don’t think that it’s a dog,” Merlin, who by some miracle still had his head attached to his shoulders, corrected him. Clearly, he was not out of the woods yet, though, because Arthur shot him an unamused look.

“Let’s go fight this demon _dog_. Merlin can go first, since he is such an expert.” With a twirl of his cape, Arthur left.

“Are you still mad about last night?” Merlin called as he quickly scurried after Arthur.

“Is this about the tavern thing? Because I didn’t see Merlin there,” Gwaine muttered to Percival.

“That’s because you were too busy drinking yourself under the table.” Percival slapped him on the back, using a bit more force than strictly necessary, and followed the rest of the knights.

Outside, they forced their way through  the mass of screaming people running the other way. It made it easy to find the demonic creature, they just had to follow the path in opposite direction of the people. On the edge of town, they found the creature, its back turned towards them. In the light of the torches, its black fur gleamed.

“It does look like a dog,” Arthur said. “If a big one.”

They dismounted and slowly approached the creature. When they were a few metres away, the monster turned around, and they all simultaneously took a step back.

“Merlin was right,” Elyan whispered. “That is not a dog.”

Despite the situation, Merlin grinned, looking pleased with himself.

Arthur snorted. “Whatever, he just got lucky. Don’t let it get to your head,” he warned Merlin.

“I don’t think any of us is lucky tonight, my lord,” Leon said, his eyes fixated on the creature.

“And none of us is getting lucky tonight either,” Percival muttered, but only Merlin, who was standing next to him, heard him and let out a snort.

The animal had not one, but three heads, one of a lion, one of a goat and one of a snake, which was attached to the creature’s tail.

“It’s a chimera,” Merlin whispered, and no one bothered to ask how he knew that.

“It won’t be for long,” Arthur said grimly. He drew his sword. “On me!” As one, they stormed forward.

The lion head of the monster roared, when the beast suddenly turned around and ran away.

“After it!” Arthur yelled.

The horses had run away, so they had to follow the chimera on foot. It quickly gained an advantage on them and disappeared into the woods.

“What do we do?” Leon asked. “Try to find it again in the morning?”

Arthur pursed his lips. “No, by then Morgana may have thought of something to make it stronger. We end this tonight.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Let’s split up. Percival, go with Merlin. Keep an eye on him so he doesn’t sneak off to the tavern again.”

“Please, if I had to choose between the tavern or certain doom, certain doom it is,” Merlin declared.

Arthur just huffed and gestured to move out.

“I can’t believe Gaius told Arthur again that I was at the tavern last night,” Merlin muttered as he snuck after Percival into the woods.

Percival remained quiet for a moment, his eyes scanning their surroundings as he adjusted his grip. “Yeah, Gaius again.”

“I wasn’t even at the tavern,” Merlin continued. “Not that Arthur would ever believe _me_.”

Percival stopped and turned around. “I know you weren’t there. Gwaine went there to fetch you. When you weren’t there, he decided to stay anyway. I got to babysit.”

Merlin bit back a laugh. “I’m sure you enjoyed that.”

“It beat telling Arthur we couldn’t find you.”

“Yeah, well, I was, er…” Merlin fumbled with his tunic.

Percival stopped and turned around, placing a hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “Say no more, I got it.” He smirked. “I can imagine why you wouldn’t want Arthur to know you have a girlfriend in town.”

“But I don’t have a-”

“Hush.” Percival placed a finger to his lips. “Did you hear that?”

“The chimera?” Merlin whispered.

Percival beckoned him to follow. Together, they crept through the bushes, pushing aside branches. Something passed by them, and Percival heard Merlin’s breath catch. It was probably a rabbit. He looked over his shoulder, hoping to look reassuring. Merlin nodded almost imperceptibly. They moved forward.

After what seemed forever, they reached a clearing in the wood. In the light of the full moon, the shape of the chimera could clearly be made out. It was facing towards them, but hadn’t appeared to have spotted them yet.

Percival gestured to Merlin to stop and then towards the clearing. Merlin nodded that he understood. Percival then gestured that he would sneak around the clearing, slamming his fist on his flat hand to bring across that he would pound the beast once there. Merlin nodded again.

Percival didn’t really know how to gesture ‘don’t do anything stupid’, so he just held out his finger and looked threateningly. Merlin gave him a deadpanned look and then nodded. Percival gestured with two fingers towards his eyes and then to Merlin, before he started to creep around the clearing.

He wasn’t even half way there, though, when he heard rustling in the bushes, and he didn’t even have to look around to know that Merlin was doing something stupid. He still did, though, and as he expected, Merlin had stepped out of the shadows and into the clearing.

The chimera spotted Merlin with his snake head tail and whipped around. Merlin placed his feet firmly on the ground and started muttering something.

“Idiot,” Percival whispered, gripping his sword tightly.

The chimera growled with its lion head. It put its behind in the air, ready to attack. Merlin saw it, but he remained in the same place, muttering faster.

“Merlin!” Percival shouted.

The chimera punched.

Percival didn’t hesitated for a moment and jumped from the bushes, pushing Merlin aside. They both tumbled to the ground as the chimera flew past them. The goat head hit against a tree, and the creature fell to the ground.

Breathing heavily, Percival looked over his shoulder.

“Why do you always get to have all the fun?”

Gwaine had appeared on the opposite side of the clearing, grinning like an idiot. The chimera scrambled to its paws, though the goat’s head was hanging limply to the side.

“Next time, could you take care of the more dangerous heads first?” Gwaine said. “Or do I have to do everything myself?”

The chimera charged. Gwaine grinned, lifting up his sword. The monster jumped, knocking Gwaine of his feet.

“Gwaine!” Percival yelled. All he could see was the back of the monstrous beast. Its snake tail was turned forward, towards Gwaine. Gwaine’s legs were sticking out from under the beast, but there was no sign of him moving.

Suddenly, the chimera stopped in its tracks. It stood frozen for a minute, and then it collapsed to the side, a sword sticking out of its chest.

Percival and Merlin scrambled to their feet and ran to where Gwaine was lying. He was still smirking.

“Got it.”

Percival looked at Merlin and then moved forward to help Gwaine up. Gwaine got to his feet, stumbled and then slumped against Percival.

“Gwaine?” Merlin asked worriedly.

Gwaine looked up, a pained grin on his face. “It got me first.”

Percival pushed Gwaine slightly away as Gwaine slowly removed his hand from his side. It was covered in blood, and a dark stain was quickly spreading across his tunic.

Percival cursed under his breath and hastened himself to put Gwaine down on the ground again, while Merlin kneeled at his side.

“Is he going to be okay?” Percival asked.

“Please, it’s just a flesh wound,” Gwaine said and then hissed in pain when Merlin applied pressure to the wound.

“He should be fine, though Gaius should have a look too,” Merlin said, ignoring Gwaine. “It doesn’t look the snake head got him.” He tore a strip of cloth from his tunic and started tying the wound.

When he was done, he got to his feet. “You should take him to Gaius. I’ll tell the others the beast is dead.”

Percival nodded and then threw Gwaine over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Put me down! This is undignified!” Gwaine protested, but Percival ignored him as he turned in the direction of the city.

“Percival?”

He turned to Merlin, who smirked.

“When Gaius is done, Gwaine could use a few quiet nights inside.”

Percival grinned back. With Gwaine having no place to run, they could finally have a nice, romantic dinner together. Whistling, Percival headed for Camelot.


End file.
